Freelance
Traveller

That was Sheringford Hope's voice coming in over the bug we'd planted on
Oshon. Danny-boy was in sickbay, the victim of either food poisoning (fat
chance on a Starways liner), or a botched assassination attempt. And it
looked like he was spilling everything. Hope is the cousin and assistant to
the famed detective Blueberry Rose St. Teresa. If she became involved in
this case we were really up against it.

What to do?

We debated our options over breakfast, speaking in Suomea to avoid giving
away anything in public. It was a stroke of good luck to team up with two
Suomalainen who had insisted I learn their language. My accent was terrible,
but I could make myself understood, and not many people spoke Uralic
languages.

Chances were good that Dan Oshon had named Angela Croughton as his
assailant. If so, she might be placed under "house arrest" and confined to
her stateroom. That'd really kill it for us. We had to act fast, but the
master passcard would not be ready until lunch time.

I pondered the merits on charging into Croughton's stateroom,
incapacitating her and destroying the stolen data disks. Who would she, a
thief, complain to? What would she say? "These people broke in and destroyed
the industrial secrets I'd stolen?" And we'd answer, "What data disks?"
Still, it was very dangerous.

We were about ready to leave when five stern-faced people walked up to
our booth. In the forefront stood the Master-At-Arms, Pytor Potts, and
Blueberry Rose herself. Behind them, Sheringford Hope and two Gunner's Mates
with holsters plainly visable. Potts laid a wafer-thin transmitter on the
table. "We believe this belongs to you."

Eija-Riita picked up the bug and made a pretense of examining it. She
snorted and tossed it down. "I can make one ten times better than that. How
many would you like?"

Potts seemed to grow an inch taller. "We know you've been following a
Freeman Daniel Oshon. He's in sickbay now, and we found this on his person."

I mustered all my nonchalance. "If I'd planted a bug on him, I wouldn't
need to follow him around, now would I? Conversely, if I was trailing him, I
wouldn't need to plant a bug on him: I'd bug his stateroom." In all
innocence I asked, "Did you find a bug in his cabin?"

"I'll ask the questions here, Freeman fforbes-Wainscotting," Potts
stated. He thought that over and modified his statement. "Not here. Please
come with us."

Nuts. I put my napkin down in preparation to obey, but Eija-Riita said
flat out, "No."

I thought Potts was going to swallow his tongue. His eyes bulged and his
face started to turn red.

"Suppose," she continued. "Just suppose, hypothetically speaking, that we
are following this Ohson person to Pentosa -- "

"Oshon," Hope corrected.

"Whatever. If we are following him to Pentosa in order to extract
wereguild from him because of a dishonor he committed against one of my
sister Vespa Virgins, I fail to see what business it is of yours."

"The man may have been poisoned!"

"The food is not that bad," Eija-Ritta retorted.

"Can't collect wereguild from a dead man." I picked up the wafer and
tossed it at Potts who fumbled it. The wafer fell to the floor. "Now, if
there's nothing else?"

Potts opened his mouth to speak, but Blueberry Rose beat him to it. "We
can learn nothing more here, Mister Potts. Their assessment of the situation
has the ring of truth to it until we can prove that they are lying in whole
or in part. I suggest our energies are best spent on other lines of
inquiry."

Potts looked unconvinced, but St. Teresa turned on her heel and left with
Sheringford Hope in tow. Just like that we were dismissed by the master
sleuth. But I knew she didn't believe us.

Potts scooped the bug off the floor and stormed away with his security
team. We had a reprieve. How long would it last?

We spent the rest of the morning in our staterooms, emerging at noon when
Eija-Riita's forged master passcard was ready. We spent a good half hour
wandering all over the ship in hopes any crew shadowing us would mark us
down as harmless. We rendezvoused in the elevator well of B-Deck and settled
into loung echairs against the aft wall.

Fifteen minutes later Satu and I got up and went into the passenger
hallway furthest to port while Eija-Riita took the elevator up the the
Promenade Deck for some very visible carousing to focus the crew's
attention.

Satu and I strolled down the hall most casually, looking at door numbers,
until a couple emerging from a stateroom walked past and out into the
elevator well. Then we hurried back to door B-49 and used the master key to
gain entry.

It was supiciously too easy. Angela Croughton's personal computer was on
the desk with a case of data disks nearby. All but one were labeled in a
woman's precise handwriting. The odd one out had an ugly scrawl on it that
we couldn't quite decipher. I inserted it into my own computer and hacked
into the files without too much trouble. Bang-o. We had it.

I handed our data disk with the fake information on it to Satu. While I
gave the room a cursory search, she sat down at the desk with both disks and
proceeded to copy Oshon's sloppy label onto the fake. We then put the fake
in the case and departed the room.

I couldn't believe our luck.

I really couldn't believe our luck.

It was much too easy. I wanted to chalk up our good fortune to
Croughton's youth and inexperience, but something itched in the back of my
mind. It was really much too easy. Was Croughton so foolish as to
leave the disk out like that? Wouldn't she have hidden it away?

I mulled this over during lunch. Satu ate quietly, knowing when to leave
me alone with my thoughts. Croughton had to feel secure since no one but the
Master-at-Arms had a master passcard. If no one can gain entry, why hide the
disk? But we had gained entry. There was always the possibility someone
could break into a room. So she should have hidden it, just to be safe. Now,
if I were in her position I would ....

I groaned out loud.

"Is that a commentary on the fish or on the chips?" Satu asked.

I pushed my plate aside and leaned my arms on the table. "This is what I
would have done in Croughton's place," I said in Suomea. "Make a copy and
have it secured in the Captain's or Purser's safe. Then leave the original
disk lying around so a sneak thief would think he'd foiled the attempt at
industrial espionage."

"You want to break into the Captain's and Purser's safes?"

"I don't even know where they are on this ship. Probably in the Captain's
and Purser's quarters. Christ on a pogo stick."

"You're assuming she's as smart as we are."

"Can we afford not to?

We retired to a table in The Hall on A-Deck and called up the ship's deck
plans on our computers. We studied them, but didn't like what we learned. To
get to "Officer Country" we'd have to sneak through the Boat Bays' access
corridor -- no problem if we weren't seen because the doors were never
locked -- and then past the officers' lounge, to access the Captain's cabin,
or along the causeway to starboard and the Purser's quarters. Beyond
Officers' Country lay the bridge, meaning that the corridors were heavy
traffic areas. No... most of the non-officer crew would enter and egress
through the two hatchways on the bridge. It could be that only a few
officers and utility people in the lounge area at any given time. Unless
they were called to emergency stations.....

"How about this: Eija-Riita gains access to a load center and starts an
emergency. While that's going on, I slip into the Purser's room and crack
his safe. If I'm caught in the hallway, I'll say I was on my way for a tour
of the bridge or the officer's lounge when the emergency occurred."

"If you were a ship's officer, Hamilton, would you believe
that?"

"No. But passengers often have a reputation for doing stupid things. How
about this: you and I strike up a conversation with a junior officer, and
while you're flirting with him in the lounge I'll remember an urgent
appointment that'll take me away. Then I can slip into the Purser's room."

"Why the Purser's and not the Captain's room?"

"The Purser is more accessable by the passengers. That's who I'd approach
if I wanted something stored away. Shall we give it a try?"

Satu frowned. "I need to think about this."

To tell the truth, so did I. But we only had two more days to wrap this
up before we landed on Pentosa.

I wandered about the ship for a couple of hours, deep in thought. I
finally hit upon a plan so simple, so unorthodox, that I thought it might
actually work. I sought out my two companions and found them in the C-Deck
elevator well. They sat in chair along the wall and waited for flute master
Tomiko Takahashi to stop swaying to whatever music was bouncing around
inside her head and actually put flute to lips. I sat down next to them.
"Here's one for the books: let's tell St. Teresa what we're doing here and
ask her to find out if the Purser or the Captain has a package belonging to
Freelady Croughton, and if they'd give it up to us."

Eija-Riita and Satu stared at me as if I'd grown another head.

"We can verify that Mercury Chemical hired us, and that Croughton stole
the industrial secrets. We can point out that Croughton must have poisoned
Oshon which, if it doesn't solve that case, at least gives them a prime
suspect. We can pay St. Teresa a finder's fee in exchange for a bit of
discretion."

"Awww, I thought we were going to crack a couple of safes," Eija-Riita
said.

"Too bloody dangerous. Well, what do you say?"

The two women exchanged glances. I figured they thought I'd gone off my
rocker. After a long moment, Satu said, "It make sense, sort of. We'd be
hiring this New Caledonian detective to reclaim stolen goods. I don't see
why it shouldn't work, unless the woman is downright bloody-minded."

At that moment the lights went out.

Emergency lights bathed the elevator well in a pale glow. No alarms
sounded, and everyone present ceased activity and waited for someone in
authority to tell us what to do and where to go. Takahashi chose that moment
to raise her flute and start playing an eeire tune that perfectly fit the
current mood of her assembled audience: tense, fearful and impotent.

Four crew in vacc suits and carrying firefighting gear converged on load
center 3 off to our left. Three stood ready while the fourth yanked the door
open. No smoke or flames issued forth, and we craned our necks for a better
view.

A man and woman had gone into the load center for a bit of adultery and
tripped circuit breakers during their passion. I don't remember their names,
but had seen them around the ship in the company of their spouses. They came
out into the well sheepish and trying to straighten their disheavled
clothing to scattered applause. This juicy story would be all other the ship
within the hour, and the couple would get it good from their spouses. It's
times like that I wish I was a divorce lawyer.

Takahashi stopped playing her flute and went back to swaying in time to a
tune inside her head. The three of us went up to B-Deck's aft passenger
section, starboard side, and knocked on St. Teresa's door. No one answered,
so went tried the stateroom next to hers that belonged to Sheringford Hope.
No answer there either. Eija-Riita held up her forged master passcard and
winked at me. "Don't even think it," I said. "We want this woman on our good
side."

Nothing better to do, we went up to A-Deck to hang out in The Hall. There
we found Blueberry Rose St. Teresa and Sheringford Hope sitting at a table.
I squared my shoulders and walked up to them.

"Freelady St. Teresa. Freeman Hope. Pardon this interruption, but my
friends and I are in need of some assistance."

Blueberry Rose took the pipe from her mouth and pointed the stem at a
chair. I sat down; so did Satu, and Eija-Riita grabbed a chair from a nearby
table to join us. I quickly outlined our problem to the New Caledonians:
we'd been hired to discretely recover stolen industrial secrets and knew
that Angela Croughton had them, curtesy of her henchman Dan Oshon. I
explained my belief that Croughton would have made a copy and stashed it
away somewhere safe, possibly giving it into the keeping of the Purser or
even the Captain. I offered to pay Cr500 if she could recover the data for
us. Then I held my breath.

St. Teresa eyed us with that cold, penetrating gaze of hers. Finally, she
said, "I agree that Croughton made a copy of the stolen data. And she might
very well have placed it with one of the senior officers for safekeeping
until planetfall. Or she might have hidden it under her bed in a luggage
case along with a disk containing a college history course program and a
disk containing indecipherable financial data regarding Sasparilla Chemical
accounts."

Fuck me. I never thought to look in such an obvious place as under the
bed. "You found the blasted thing, didn't you?"

"Of course. This case turned out to be much too simple a problem. The man
Croughton hired wasn't really up to the task set for him. His indiscretion
led us to her. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that Oshon's illness is
due to anything other than natural causes. Some virus he picked up on
Regatta, or so the ship's surgeon thinks. That means the stolen data disks
in Croughton's possession are not needed as evidence for trial."

"Ah. Then you wouldn't mind selling your copy to us."

"On the contrary, I mind very much. You see, the CEO of Mercury Chemical
was so desparate to resolve his problem that he retained my services as well
as yours. Your failure to find the backup copy would have proven disastorous
to Mercury Chemical." She paused to relight her pipe. "Fortunately, I was
able to retrieve it. I also switched labels with the disk of fake
information you left on Croughton's desk. She'll find a disk labeled 'Backup
Copy' in her valaise where she left it, and assume the information it
contains is accurate. In effect, she'll thank her lucky stars that she got
away with her little caper and bring the fake data home to Daddy. But the
real backup copy will be turned over to the CEO of Mercury Chemical along
with my report." She drew on her pipe and blew out a cloud of cavendish-scented
smoke. "It really is the easiest money I ever made. Hardly worth the time."

Eija-Riita shoved her chair back, stood, and planted both fists on the
table. "You bitch!"

"Shut your hole," Eija-Riita suggested. She turned her attention back to
St. Teresa. "We busted our butts to solve this case. We almost had a bonus
of two hundred thousand credits in our hands!"

"Almost only counts in ring-toss," St. Teresa commented, unperturbed.

Satu rose slowly and carefully took her wife's arm. "Come on, hon," she
said softly. "We lost and nothing can change that. So let's not make a
scene."

I stood as well. "Satu's right. I should have looked under the bloody
bed. Congratulations, Freelady. And good night."

"One more thing," the detective said. "If you would be so kind as to
leave your forged master passcard here I won't have to report your having it
to Gunnery Officer Potts."

I thought Eija-Riita's head would explode, or that she'd start foaming at
the mouth. Neither happened, and Satu fished the passcard out of her wife's
pocket and dropped it onto the table. We virtually had to drag Eija-Riita
out of the room.

The rest of the trip passed without incident. The ship's surgeon placed
Oshon in cold sleep and he was transferred to a hospital on Pentosa. He
later recovered, and no charges were ever brought against Angela Croughton.

We'd lost out on our chance to make two hundred thousand credits. That
stung. But we had a bonus of Cr50,000 for keeping those barrels of acid from
going out with Mercury Chemicals trash (saving them a hefty
multimillion-credit fine) plus Cr500 a day for five days. Lex Tarson was
fired from his job as Mercury's Security Chief. Eija-Riita came out of her
funk when we made landed on Pentosa, and built a two-person Vespa grav sled
she and Satu could run amuck all over the planet. The three of us also
signed up for another drunk jump ball tournament, but that's another story.
And if I run into you next week here at Sam Po's Tavern, I'll tell you about
our trip to Sally's Island.

Author's note: the name Sheringford Hope was invented by A.
Conan Doyle for the master sleuth he later called Sherlock Holmes. The name
Blueberry Rose was coined by Teresa M. who once said to her boyfriend, "If
we have a baby girl we could name her Blueberry Rose." And he shot back,
"Sure. And if it's a boy, we'll call him English Muffin."